Unspoken
by mickeiblue
Summary: What do you do when someone you love is slipping away? What do you do when you realise you’ve been fighting for the wrong thing? LP/BLit’s a Brucas one shot being told from Peyton’s perspective, sn 6ish, please R&R.


**disclaimer: i do not own OTH or its characters or any things that already existed before i wrote this, i do however own a usb i was very thankful to find or i wouldnt be able to post anymore fanfic.**

My smile is slipping and I know if anyone was to look at me and to notice my down cast eyes they would instantly know something is wrong, I have never been good at acting happy.

They notice. I see them all glance at me a few times and frown.

Haley does and sends me a questioning look, Nathan does and smiles at me, Brooke does and gives me a reassuring smile yet her eyes looked slightly worried and I knew as long as she is not distracted she'll ask me what was up next time we're alone.

Lucas turns to me on our car ride home and asks me if something is wrong and for now I put on a fake smile and lie "just tired I guess, works been so hectic and I feel a migraine coming on"

When we walk towards our new apartment he pulls me closer to his side and kisses my head, it doesn't make me feel any better.

I noticed something tonight, maybe something I should have noticed a lot sooner but now I have I can't seem to get it out of my head.

Lucas and I have been back together for two months, we have just moved into the apartment we picked out together and we plan to get married with all our friends and family watching.

We haven't set a date.

Originally we were going to elope, that is after all how we got back together.

He called me up said he had two tickets to Vegas and asked if I wanted to get married that night, I'd said no to him before and lost him and I wasn't going to make the same mistake again, this was my chance – I said yes.

But it had felt too rushed and as we got nearer to that chapel I know we were both feeling that it was somehow wrong.

Then his phone rang.

It had been Brooke. I never got a chance to over hear their conversation though Lucas looked worried because my own phone rang seconds after his. I found out later that it was her telling him that Angie was home safe and sound, she'd called because he'd asked her to tell him once she knew, I her best friend hadn't even been aware Angie was on her way home.

My phone call had been Mia leaving me with a name and a number, the name had shocked me because I instantly recognised it from my brother Derek - it was my biological father. I had been so shocked and scared at the knowledge.

After the calls we turned back to each other and went on as if nothing had happened, though looking back at it now I think we both became more itchy at the situation.

Strange how neither of us bothered to turn our phones off even after the first interruption, we were both so distracted, not just by our phone calls but also by our happiness.

Being together felt so great, it was such a relief and lightened my heart, I felt giddy again and I think Lucas felt it too.

Moments before the ceremony just as we were standing in that chapel Lucas' phone rang again, this time it was Haley calling to inform Lucas about Dan's accident.

He looked at me and I just knew he no longer wanted to be here, he wanted to be at home.

"Go" I had said "Let's go home, I think they're calling us back"

"But… our wedding? I want to be with you Peyton, I've made my decision and there is no turning back, it's you, let's get married"

"We will, but is this how we really want it to happen? Alone with no family around us while the people we love back home need us, let's get married but let's do it right, we have forever and it doesn't have to start tonight"

And so we came home engaged, people were shocked but they were happy for us or I would at least like to think they were happy for us.

The wedding didn't happen as quickly as we thought, life got in the way, we're still planning it and in my head it's all set.

We haven't set a date yet.

"Anything interesting happen today?" Lucas asks bringing me back to the present, we now are in our kitchen, probably the only part of the apartment that has been completely unpacked, the boxes around the place have yet to be fully sorted out, most of it's Lucas', he doesn't seem to get rid of anything.

He passes me a coffee and another memory hits me. Just after we got back from Vegas while we were at my old house, or should I say Brooke's house I'd stood in the kitchen and watched her make us all a coffee. She'd done it effortlessly without thought, once finished she'd passed us all our own, saying mine and Lucas' as she placed them in front of us. At the time I had slightly paused at the realisation that I hadn't known how Lucas now liked his coffee yet Brooke had known. The thought had been so brief I'd forgotten until now.

The flash of memory finished I think back over his question.

_Anything interesting happen today? _Yes, actually, I noticed something I hadn't before.

Instead I say "just two people falling in love" I try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

He looks at me and frowns so I continue "the funny thing is I don't think anyone else notices, not even them" _and I only noticed tonight_.

He shakes his head and his eyes suddenly go blank and he laughs "I don't know Peyt, Brooke and Dr Copeland haven't been going out that long I wouldn't call what they have love"

I look down and just drink my coffee. He checks the messages and picks up the paper as we sit in a silence not to different to our usual comfortable silences, but I am far from comfortable, instead I sit and think.

Why did we go on this horrible triple date?

I am not an insecure person; I'm not a jealous person or someone who is paranoid in relationships.

Now I'm wondering if maybe I am too sure, maybe I was too blind that I simply didn't see what was happening in front of me.

No Lucas, I am not talking about Brooke and Ethan, I am talking and thinking about you and Brooke.

Brooke and Lucas, I haven't even thought about those two together since high school, it was so easy to forget that at one point they had meant everything to each other.

Now they are such great friends, I had known they had gotten close since returning to Tree Hill and I had been thankful the dreaded triangle was over and we could all be in each others lives, Lucas and I together and Brooke as our friend.

Yet I'm starting to go over everything differently.

Before Vegas I spent little time with Lucas, and even littler time with Lucas and Brooke together, I had known they were becoming good friends and had been glad Lucas had someone to talk to and Brooke had somebody else to lean on with the Angie situation.

After Vegas things changed, after wanting Lucas for so long I finally had him and at first I was just so happy and everything happened so fast, and then life just went so crazy with work and my biological father and everything that Lucas was really my steady rock, we got content.

Lately with things calming down I've become more observant, and though I don't say it out loud there has been something missing between Lucas and I.

Don't get me wring he is what I want, this is what I want and we love each other but… but… it is just not really how I imagined it. It is not like I remember, not the feeling and not the life.

We are two very different people than what we were last time we were together and a lot has happened in our lives since then, there are bound to be things we need to smooth over and a whole knew stage of getting to know each other.

I expected that, or at least have learnt to expect that.

In a way it's a chance to fall in love all over again.

And then tonight happened.

It's the little things I had not yet picked up on that bombarded me tonight, things that suddenly were bringing back little memories of the previous three months.

And for the first time ever I am finding myself comparing Lucas and I to Lucas and Brooke.

I noticed the way they comfortably touch each other, with them sitting beside each other at dinner there were a thousand times they had the opportunity. When they teased each other they playfully hit, bumped and looked each other in the face with smiles, their noses nearly touching. When they remembered something from the past Brooke might cover Luke's hand briefly with her own, or they lean over each other at they reminisce, his hand on her shoulder or her hand on his thigh.

With the gang together, or at least Haley, Nathan, Brooke, Lucas and me sitting at the table, the past and a lot of high school came up in conversation. There were times when Lucas and Brooke shared a story, easily taking over from the other, and occasionally a story would pop up from the period when Brooke and Lucas were dating, it was never mentioned, not once during the whole dinner was Brooke and Lucas' past relationship brought up, but every time something from that period was mentioned I would remember _that was when they were together_ or _that's a memory they share because they were together then_.

We all laughed together, we all smiled together, because we're all long time friends and we have known each other for what seems like , Ethan laughs and smiles too at the things we say and the way we interact, but sometimes it was just Lucas and Brooke laughing and smiling together while it was us laughing and smiling at _them_.

They even had a small argument during dinner, their faces frowning in frustration, it was quick and passionate while it lasted, their anger though swiftly disappeared and they started joking around immediately afterwards. So brief it went by almost unnoticed.

Why do I care? Why have I suddenly noticed all these little things? Why now could it possibly mean anything? They are just friends, great friends, close friends.

Friends.

That is what I keep telling myself, but there was this one moment during dinner when my smile began to slip, that moment when it all changed in my mind.

So simple really, Brooke and Ethan had been talking and Lucas had cut in to tease Brooke, she had playfully reprimanded him for the insult, they shot back a few insults, banter really, some personal some not, doing all those casual touches, and we all laughed at them and smiled, and mid laugh I looked at them and my thoughts changed. They went from humour at their jokes to wondering about that look, yes _that look_. With us all laughing at them around them Lucas and Brooke had turned to each other and shared a look, it was a look so familiar to me it had the power to stop my laugh.

That was the moment it hit me, that was the moment it all hit me, not just tonight but the last few months, even before Vegas, more hit me, all the memories from the past came back. It was the moment that I went from looking at them and seeing two friends and instead against my will saw two people falling in love.

And it was a stab at my heart.

How could I miss this?

Is it even real or am I making more of it, because surely they are just good friends.

I looked around the table to see if the others see it, if they notice and if they are wondering the same things I am. They were all just laughing and smiling, none looked worried or uncomfortable, and none looked surprised. Not even Ethan who was meant to be Brooke's date, and I asked myself what people who weren't at the table would think. If a passer by came up to us what would they make up of it, not knowing us and not spending time with Brooke and Lucas what would they make of their interaction and _that_ damn_ look_?

Today I saw two people falling in love and the funny thing is I don't think anyone else notices not even them.

I had been so distracted by Lucas and by my life I had been completely oblivious to what was happening to those around me, it wasn't a slow realisation it had hit me all at once, it wasn't a gradual thing over time and one that snuck up on me, oh no, I hadn't noticed before because I simply did not notice Lucas and Brooke together, it went in one ear and out the other, because they are just friends. Tonight I noticed. And I think that is why I was the only one who did react this way, I think part of the reason I am the one thinking these things and not Haley and Nathan and not Brooke and Lucas and not even Ethan is because they are all use to it. It was something that they had seen before, had noticed before, most likely as the friendship grew, so they were simply use to it, even Ethan who barely knows us, who has only been dating Brooke for a month is aware that this is how Brooke and Lucas are and because they all think they are friends they think nothing of it and why would they after all Lucas is with me and Brooke is with Ethan so there obviously can't be anything more to it.

Or is there?

I think I am going crazy.

It's not just that though, it's not just how Brooke and Lucas are together that has hit me it is how Lucas and I are not like together that has just come to my notice.

How come he could so easily say 'I love you, Brooke Davis' to her, I know he says I love you to Nathan and Haley and Jamie, tonight I noticed how casually he could say it to Brooke as well, there were always 'love you too' or 'you know I love you' or 'have to go now, love you' like tonight when we parted in the car park and Lucas and Brooke hugged, now I think about it that hug lasted just a fraction longer than his hug with Haley, but they hugged said their see you's and his words had been 'I'm still deciding if Dr Copeland is good enough for you, hope everything goes well, love you Brooke Davis' and Brooke had laughed 'I love you too Lucas Scott' and that was it they went their separate ways. I maybe reading to much into it but why does Lucas refuse to call Ethan by his first name, it is always Dr Copeland to him, and why can I suddenly recall all the times he throws those I love you's at Brooke whether its on the phone or in person, yet I can't remember the last time he said those words to me. How come she gets I love you too and I get just me too, how come I always say it first yet with her he says it first half the time?

He doesn't touch me like that, he doesn't reminisce with me like that or smile at me like that, and he doesn't look at me like he looks at her. And I started to wish he did.

I started to wish we had what they have which is crazy because they are the friends and we are the couple. I am the one he shares a bed and home with and I am the one he kisses and makes love to.

We are not the same two people we once were and our relationship is different to what it once was, we have changed, I know that. And now I'm wondering if what we do have now is just too different and we are holding on to something that just isn't there.

I hate to say it and I hate to even think it.

And I wouldn't have before tonight.

Now it is all I think about.

Lucas is slipping away from me, I can feel it, I think I have for a long time I just refused to see it.

I should have realised before now that I no longer know what he is thinking, I no longer know what he needs straight away, I hadn't even known how he liked his coffee. I am no longer the person he confides in or brings his troubles to and somewhere along the way that person had become Brooke.

How many things does she know about him that I don't? What stuff does she notice that I don't, other than how he liked his coffee what else did she learn and what else does she know?

Does Brooke know my fiancé better than I do?

Are there secrets they share?

And now I'm thinking about the present I am thinking about the past. Things that Brooke and Lucas share that I can't touch. Like all those letters they wrote to each other, private messages of their love and thoughts. What was in those letters? Are there things about Lucas in them that I don't know, and if there is and I'm sure there must be, can I blame them seeing that is something from their past that has nothing to do with me, from a time when I was the friend and they were the couple. So there has to be a private part of Lucas, my fiancé, which she knows and she has that I don't.

For the first time in my life I feel like the third wheel in my own relationship, tonight has made me feel that way.

And I don't think there is any going back.

What do you do when you suddenly see two people falling in love right in front of your eyes and you're the only person who seems to notice, they don't even realise it, what do you do if those two people are your fiancé and your best friend?


End file.
